Overcoming Objections in Your Sales Conversations - 4 Part Series

In a new four-part series I want to talk to you about how to handle objections with confidence when you propose your offers and my top tips for how to overcome them. In this first blog of the four-part series I will be diving straight in with looking at how we may be sabotaging ourselves through our own subconscious objections to selling. 

When you come to the table to work with your client, you bring along all of your own ideas, thoughts and feelings about buying. The same thing is true when it comes to overcoming objections and guiding people through resistance. AND I’d love you to take some time to get clear about your own objections to selling. 

This resistance shows up on our consultations/sales calls/conversations, whatever you call it! So, what does it look like? What does it feel like? What is a true resistance that you want to help someone pass through? Or if there is an objection, should you or should you not overcome that objection when you meet with them? Because we all know that people buy from people they know, like and trust. AND they buy value, not your price, and part of that value proposition are the intangibles associated with the buying process. 

The intangibles include your response time, how easy, or how hard you make it to do business with you, and how excited you are about them or whatever they need that made them inquire with you in the first place.

I’d love for you to think about it from your own buying perspective first… 

What is your go-to objection or resistance that you use when you are buying? I'm gonna give you a couple of examples and I want you to really tune in and ask yourself, “what do I normally say when someone is giving me an invitation to purchase? AND, I’m saying this with love for you, because I had to do this for myself too!

For example, let's pretend right now that I just gave you an invitation to work with me. So let's just have you see and listen to that and feel into that. Think about the last time you went to go buy something, anything that felt like a stretch or transformational moment… what did you hear inside your head?

You know that voice on the inside that informs what we then say on the outside?
Did you hear- “Wow, that feels expensive”. Or “I don't have the money” or “I need to talk to my partner or my spouse”. Or, “Whoa. “It's not the right time” “It's not the right timing.” “I will when I'm ready.”

I want you to lean into those things that you hear because there's no right or wrong here. AND when you are clear on what's showing up in your head then you can actually learn how to overcome your own buying objections – Then it becomes much easier to walk others through it.

And here's what else I want you to look at: When you are choosing to sell your own services, if for any reason you do not have rock solid, deep, intense unwavering belief in your price point, in your offer, your service and in yourself - that is what opens up the doors for someone to step up with resistance. And if you don't feel it, if you don't believe in yours 100%, well then you actually can't sell it the way you want to sell it. Think about that for a second.

Have you ever been in a sales conversation that you're bubbling with excitement over? You can't wait to share your ideas with them. Or, you know beyond a shadow a doubt that you can help them! In fact, you probably were in the consultation and you just were like, talking, talking, talking and then all of a sudden they bought and you're like what happened? What did I do differently?

Well, what happened is your belief was so strong and activated that it almost didn't matter what you said or how you said it because they could feel that energy, so much that they bought into your belief which created transformation for them and let them be in a “yes”.

So we get to identify that for ourselves. 

What is resistance? What are objections?

They are two different things..

Resistance is when you're going down the path of the sales conversation and the thing that you want, it doesn't make immediate sense. It's the moment of a roadblock. Have you ever had this experience where you want something but then you're like, mmm….it don’t think it makes sense for me. Something feels off. Now I’m wondering, is it because of the price or perhaps is it because I’m uncomfortable?

Here's a way I can explain it for me: We just bought some window treatments for our house. And for most people what they would do is they would go save up the money and then go buy the window treatments and then pay for them. What I do differently is when I want something, I go buy it first and then I welcome in all the money and the resources I need and I'm able to then pay for things. This is just the way that I now understand how to function because I don't ever want to be in a spot where if I want something, I can rule out the price issue and then see if it’s a resistance that I’m feeling.

The objection is what you think or say to stop and justify the resistance you feel. 

The 3 main objections we often get: money, time and checking with someone else.

So, I’d love to walk you through what to do with all of these. And again, I want you to have the lens of which is the one that shows up for you. Because here's the best thing about these objections, you don't actually ever have to even go buy that thing that you think doesn't have a great value exchange or feels too expensive. You don't have to buy it.

When you are in a consultation or a sales call, here's what you tend to hear: “I don't have the money.” And have you ever heard someone say, after you have given your offer (proposal), “I can't afford it”. Or, “I don't have the money”. “I need to go see how I can get the money”, any of those phrases? We’ve all heard them, haven’t we?

Have you heard “I need to go talk with my partner or so and so.”? Sometimes that's actually a parent, or romantic partner or sometimes a business associate; it’s some deferred “I can’t make the decision by myself and need to talk to somebody else” objection. We've heard that too. 

And what about these? It isn't the right time. “I won’t be able to book your services until April” or “I can’t book right now, it’s a really busy time for me at work. Can you check back next week or…. In a month?” Or, “do you have a class that starts in June?” “Oh, if you have September available, I’ll be all in.” AND, I'm sure you've all heard this as well. “I need to do XYZ before I can start/chat with you.” This is the timing objection that shows up. And have you ever heard, “I have too much on my plate right now” This one is the “I don't have enough time to even do what you're offering me.” And there's only one that I will not support someone through. And that one is (and you need to be really mindful when this person shows up) is the person who has all them. Because what that's actually telling me is that they are more committed to resistance, more committed to complaining or staying stuck or putting things off than they are to transforming, or moving forward with their plans.

It's the person that as soon as you kind of walk through one objection, they like to throw up a second one. Or when I hear red flag phrases, such as “I've tried everything”. “Nothing works for me.” “I’ve tried talking to several people and I’m not happy with what they’ve given me.” Now that's a little bit subtle–it still says that “everyone else is all in the wrong and I can’t see anything that works FOR ME”. And that's different from “I tried everything and I really need to find something that will work”. Do you see how those are two different things?

There is resistance in all of those objections. AND objections are just buying signals. Most people don’t negotiate for things they don’t want. If they weren’t interested, they wouldn’t bother asking the question or voice an objection. It’s really a mindset shift to see the opportunities. If they weren’t interested you would have never gotten the inquiry in the first place; much less an appointment.  

Why does resistance show up in a sales conversation?

Why do we think this shows up? Here's the truth.

It's not about the money. It is not about the time, the timing, anything else, fear of change, leaving the comfort zone… 

So ladies and gents here's what's happening during a sales conversation and this is true whether you sell a tube of lipstick, a wedding, a coaching service…anything. You are offering someone a way to transform and become someone or do something different from their normal life or routine. And here's what happens… 

Have you ever seen or known a person in your life who is living a pretty miserable existence and they stay in that miserable existence? Everybody knows this person. My hope is that this isn’t anyone listening to me. There is always that person and you think to yourself, “they are miserable. Why are they still staying like this?” You've probably even talked with a friend or a colleague or a client, where you've said. “Hey, it's better over here. Come on over here. I promise you it's better over here”. And they won’t. 

Why don't they? Because our brains are hardwired to believe that change is dangerous. This is legit our fight, flight or freeze. We are unsafe even if we do something different, even if what is different is delightful. So what happens when you get on a sales call is you are literally entering a zone of fight, flight or freeze with somebody when they are presented with a way to transform or do something they may not be prepared for. 

So how do we resolve this?

I'm gonna give you the practical words to say to walk people through the different resistances and then I'm going to give you the energetic way to not only have that resistance not show up, but to soothe the person as you go through everything with them and still activate enough intensity that needs to be activated for someone to go into a place of “Yes”. 

We know why they're showing up because you're asking for somebody to change even if it is buying your wedding designs for example. If you've got an e-commerce business you are doing it when a person is clicking the button to buy something from you. They are buying becoming someone or something different. It may seem a little dramatic, but that's really what's happening. If you are selling coaching or consulting you're really asking for people to become different and to trust themselves. So what I do first and foremost, and this is the game changer. This is a get your pen and paper and write it down moment, because this will change all of your sales calls. 

I have learned to be prepared and positively expect resistance to show up when I meet with potential clients and to not be surprised when it does. I am not scared of it anymore. I am not holding my breath and waiting and hoping we don't have to go through it. So many of the people that I coach get into a space where they get on sales calls and what they're doing is waiting for it. It's the, “Crap, it's gonna happen again moment. I'm gonna say my amount and they're gonna say I don't have the money. It's going to happen again.” 

And they are locked in white-knuckling it or they're afraid of it or they don't want it to happen. I do things differently now and I coach and teach all of my clients to do things differently, which is – you get to be the game changer. You get to show up prepared to understand what's happening. 

Someone is simply being activated into fight, flight, or freeze. You get to hold them and guide them through the process. So I start every call relaxed knowing it's going to show up and I'll tell you a fun little secret. More and more as I did this,  I didn't hear many objections. For years, I hesitated saying my close rate for my sales in my event consultations. I had a 90% close rate. 

I got to the point that I cleared my own objections. Want to know how I cleared my own objections? Stay tuned for the second blog post in this series where I will dive into each of the specific types of objections and how to overcome them with the tools and verbiage that I use!

And again, remember, you are just getting them (and you) to be at peace with their decision and realize when the resistance comes up.